Login | April 25, 2024
9th District affirms Stow doctor’s sex conviction involving nurse
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: August 22, 2016
The remaining charge against a pain management doctor acquitted of sexually assaulting 10 patients should not be dismissed, the 9th District Court of Appeals has ruled.
James P. Bressi owned Summit Pain Specialists in Stow with a business partner. He treated his patients with osteopathic manipulative treatment, a technique involving using the hands to stretch and exert pressure on muscles and joints to achieve the proper alignment and relieve pain.
According to appellate court records, patients began calling Stow police in 2012 to report that Bressi had inappropriate sexual contact with them during treatment.
Bressi was terminated from the practice in 2013 due to the allegations and the fact that Bressi breached an office policy requiring chaperones during treatments.
He was arrested six months later and indicted on two counts of rape, 13 counts of gross sexual imposition and 12 counts of sexual imposition for incidents that prosecutors claimed occurred between May 2011 and March 2013.
The day before trial in Summit County Common Pleas Court, Bressi filed a motion to dismiss, claiming the state committed discovery violations.
The trial judge repeatedly denied his motion during the trial.
A jury found Bressi guilty of one sexual imposition count and not guilty of the other 26 counts.
Bressi was sentenced to 59 days in jail, five years of probation and fined. He was also classified as a Tier 1 sexual offender.
His sentence was stayed pending the appeal in which Bressi argued the state knowingly withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of Crim.R. 16 and Brady.
Ninety-six compact discs of recorded calls of alleged victims to police were given to the defense several weeks before trial. However, Bressi’s private investigator identified at least eight other people who said their police interviews were recorded, but the recordings were either lost or destroyed.
On the morning of trial, the prosecutor said the state provided the defense with all the recordings they had.
The trial judge questioned the detective in charge of the investigation on the record. The detective denied recording the interviews of the eight people in question.
Bressi’s private investigator admitted he did not personally interview any of the eight individuals and said it was possible they had been recorded for the civil suits rather than the criminal case.
The judge concluded the recordings did not exist and that there was no evidence Bressi suffered prejudice from not being provided the alleged recordings.
The appellate panel agreed.
“We note that only two of the eight individuals who were the subject of Bressi’s motion to dismiss actually testified at trial,” 9th District Judge Beth Whitmore wrote in her opinion. “… The other six individuals never testified and were not identified as victims or named in Bressi’s indictment.
“… His sole conviction did not stem from any of the accusers or individuals who claimed that their interviews with the police were recorded. Moreover, he never demonstrated that the State actually withheld exculpatory evidence from him.”
Judge Whitmore added that although several of the accusers testified they were recorded by police, the lower court did not abuse its discretion by denying the motion to dismiss.
The sole conviction stemmed from victim C.H., a triage nurse who had worked for Bressi for 14 years.
C.H. testified that in the spring of 2012, Bressi began inappropriately touching her with his penis while massaging her on an exam table. She stated that she got down from the table and left the room after crying.
She told the jury she kept working for Bressi after the incident because she could not afford to leave her job.
After reporting Bressi to his partner, a new office policy was written that if a patient was female, a female chaperone had to be in the room.
On appeal, Bressi argued the court erred by allowing the sexual imposition charge to go to the jury because C.H.’s testimony was “self-serving.” In addition, she failed to speak to police about the incident for more than a year.
Bressi said C.H. “misunderstood” the incident because she was under stress from her son’s death. He also accused his partner of conspiring to oust him from their practice.
Appellate judges Jennifer Hensal and Carla Moore concurred.
The case is cited State v. Bressi, 2016-Ohio-5211.